The 55th Hunger Games
by ProjectHG13
Summary: This is not a SYOT but please read anyway. Message me with suggestions if you wish. Enjoy!
1. Chapter 1

I wake up to the too familiar sound of waves crashing outside my window. They sound close so it must be high tide, prime fishing hours. Unfortunately no time for fishing today, instead I have the luxury of getting up and training for the reaping later. However, the training center us youth go to school at is closed on reaping day so all of us eligible for the reaping are on our own if we wish to train today. I eventually doze off to this soothing sound and eventually hear my dad creak my door open. Its barely dawn but I assume he wants me to train since of today's occasion. Personally I don't like to treat this day any different. I'm _technically_ a career so I'm very well prepared in all things combat.

"Toby get up and meet me at the shop" he whispers. I make a weird groaning noise and pull the pillow over my bed head.

I drag myself out of bed quietly so I don't wake my brother, Talon. He's spared this year being eleven but I know if he wakes up, he'll worry all day up to the reaping so I decide to give him a few extra hours of calmness. That's the only thing that makes me nervous about the reaping. Talon is the most important thing in my life and I really don't want to leave him and put him through the torture of watching me in the games. This year is especially horrible. Due to riots in districts one and two last year over so many kids wanting to volunteer, there was a law passed, this year anyway, that whoever is called will go and no volunteers will be accepted. This sucks for me of course because I knew that if my name was read off that damned piece of paper, then some other district four victor wannabe would take my place. I'm seventeen now so this is one of my last reapings.

I walk to the bathroom to brush my teeth. I quickly slick back my dark brown hair, splash some water over my face and walk out to the kitchen. I walk past the table and look at the empty chair that used to be my mother's. She used to sit there every morning and sip her tea and do a crossword puzzle. Then one day the chair was empty. She died after getting caught in a rip tide while fishing with my dad. She just went out too far in too rough water, and then she was gone. She was the love of my dad's life and it hit him hard. Its been a little over three years now and while my dad has returned to himself after a long period of grieving, still nobody is allowed to sit in her chair. I had to be our family's rock for a long time, Talon being young when it happened.

I'm feeling extra lazy today so I don't bother changing my clothes and head outside. I feel the nice sea breeze run across my face and can smell the salt from the ocean just yards away from my doorstep. I make my way down to my fathers bait shop along the shore and walk in.

"Hey, Pops" I say.

"Hey sleepy beauty I thought you'd never get down here" he laughs.

"Yeah well you're usually pretty serious about my reaping day training"

"Actually, Toby no training today. Lets go fishing instead."

"No arguments hear" I say

We walk over to the door and grab two tridents. If I get reaped and there's a trident in the arena, I have a very good chance of winning, that is if I decide to kill anyone. People say it's all about the training to win the games but I truly believe that it's about the decision to kill or be killed. Some kids could have won in past games but just couldn't take someone's life. I don't think I could make that decision until the gun fired in the arena and let my instincts take over.  
My dad realizes I spaced out and calls me down to the water line. I take my shirt off and slowly walk into the water, trident ready. You have to find a good spot and then wait, totally motionless so you don't reveal your motives and scare the fish. You must be totally relaxed and patient if you want to be a successful trident or spear fisherman.

After about five minutes I see a school of fish start to circle around my legs. I start to time how long it takes for them make one full rotation so my trident strike is effective the first time. When I know they are going to round my legs I launch my trident into the body of a bass and bring it up for my dad to see.

"Nice work Toby!"

I walk over to the beach to put tonight's dinner in a bucket. Out of the corner of my eye I see a girl from school checking me out so I decide to have a little fun. I pretend shes not there and turn and flex my back to her. I then suddenly spin around and smile at her and she walks away quickly and laughs playfully.

"That's not right!" my dad laughs

"Hey, Pop when you got it flaunt it" I laugh as a flex my muscles at him. 

The look on his face suddenly shifts to worry. I know he's worried I'll get on that train and never return. I decide to try to boost him up as much I can.

"Dad, please don't worry so much. After today I only have one more reaping to go." I say.

"Yeah but next time, you and Talon with both be in it." he says.

I forgot about this and know he dreads the day that it's going to happen.

"Well you better go get ready, you've got to leave in about an hour. You need to shower too you smell like fish." he laughs

I do as he says and walk back to my room Talon's gone so he must be off with his friends or something, hopefully keeping his worries at bay. I shower and walk over to my dresser to get some clothes. We're supposed to look nice so I decide to wear a light blue button up, dark blue pants, and brown shoes. but of course, me being me, I can't be totally stiff so I roll my sleeves and mess my hair a little.

* * *

I step out my front door and start my walk to the district square. A little down the path a ways, I see my best friend Felix walking with his shoulders slumped. We normally don't talk much today so I just nod at him and he returns it and keeps walking. It is a very emotional day for him and his family, two years ago his older brother died in the games after being chased for hours by a mutt. Since then, he started training ten times harder, not wanting the same death. Today I'd say he's right behind me in the ranks.

I finally reach the table of peacekeepers and I quickly move through the line to register. They hastily take my finger and prick it, smearing the small dot of blood on a sheet of paper and stamp my name on it. I find the section of older boys and find my place. I don't see Felix though. I sit and wait around and finally see my brother join my dad in the parents section. He seems okay today, thank God.

We wait for about ten more minutes and our obnoxious district escort comes to the stage. Her name is Talia and she's wearing a bright orange get up. I know the capitol, and girls for that matter, sometimes wear unique things, but come on. I laugh in my head a little bit at this.

I kind of zone out when she talks about the Treaty of Treason and when the clip from the president is on. I'm almost startled when she starts talking again.

"Now it is time to select one brave young man and woman to be tributes in the 55th Hunger Games!" she says, almost too excitedly. "Ladies first as usual!"

She walks over to the bowl of female names, taking tiny steps so she doesn't trip over her massive heels. She finally reaches it and with a big smile digs her hand deep down in the bowl, struggling to grasp a sing slip of perfectly folded paper, that hold the fate of a young girl. When she finally does she walks back over to the microphone and unfolds it.

She clears her throat and says, "Cora Lockheart!"

The sighs of relief from the hundreds of girls that were spared is almost deafening to everyone in the square. I glance over to the girls section and see the young girl take a deep breath, change her look of sadness to a huge grin. She's already playing this game like a victor. The name sounds familiar but I don't really recognize the girl until she walks up on the stage and her face is magnified on the big screen. She used to be in the same training class as me, until they changed it to training with people the same age as you. She was a year younger than me so she had to move to a class with the other now sixteen year old kids.

She walks up to the stage with confidence and instead of shaking the outstretched hand of Talia, she grabs her into a big hug. You can tell Talia wasn't expecting that so she plays it off with a giggle and a comment of how sweet and beautiful she is. Which is true. She is beautiful. Tall and thin, long, blonde hair, big brown eyes, and just a perfect face.

Once she is settled on stage she moves on to the boys. My heart starts racing I just think of Talon, and my dad. And when that makes it worse I think of all my training, trying to get some of my well deserved confidence back. She pulls out a slip of paper and walks back to center stage. It feels like an eternity until she unfolds it and says the name on it.  
"Toby Wellwood!" she says. It almost feels like she screamed the name in my face. I don't even think I just start walking. I know not to look at my brother and dad so I just look straight ahead and force a charming smile similar to Cora's. When I reach the stage, I take Talia's hand and kiss it, followed by a wink in her direction, even though I find her repulsive."How charming!" she squeals."Our tributes, Cora Lockheart and Toby Wellwood!" The games have begun


	2. Chapter 2

The next thing I know Cora and myself are led off the stage into our town hall building. The only people that aren't the mayor and his staff that get to see it are the tributes and their families. Other than that peacekeepers guard it around the hour. We are taken by two peacekeepers down a dark hallway that leads to separate rooms. One for me and my family, and the same for Cora. Unfortunately we only have about five minutes to say our goodbyes to our families. It's a fairly simple room, a couple chairs and a couch, but comfortable nevertheless. I wait for about ten minutes until I see the door handle start to turn and my dad comes in hand on my brothers back, Talon with eyes full of tears.

"Hey, buddy" I say to Talon as I hug him.

"Please come back, Toby." He cries

"I _promise_ I will"

My dad has been watching all of this but still hasn't shed a tear. I think he does it for Talon because he knows that if he cries, Talon will absolutely loose it. I release a sobbing Talon and walk over to my dad. He starts messing with my shirt "Straighten up, look sharp, Toby" he says. I laugh at this and he breaks a smile and hugs me tight.

"You know what your doing, just think before you act and you'll be fine. I've seen you train and your advanced with practically every weapon. Just be smart, Toby." he says.

Just then a peacekeeper comes in to take my family away and my brother runs up for one last hug. He doesn't want to let go but my dad grabs him and leads him out crying. My dad turns to me right before he leaves and says "I love you, son. No matter what you do in there." and the door slams shut.

* * *

Once me and Cora are on the train, we sit in silence for a while until Talia comes in. "Well congratulations careers." She giggles.

"I think you too are the most charming and attractive tributes out of this district so far! Anyway, your mentors will be here in a few minutes so just relax and enjoy all of this!"

She leaves us and me and Cora just look at each other and laugh.

"That woman is ridiculous" she laughs

"Yup she's definitely out there." I say

"So.." she starts. "Lets just get this out of the way now. Do you want to be allies in the games?"

"Yes" I say plainly and she laughs.

"Good I don't exactly want you on my bad side, I've seen you train and wow."

"Same here with you. However do you think that we should ally with districts one and two." I ask

"Lets just wait to meet them...if they're assholes and talented, then yes, I don't exactly want them on our butts the second the gun goes off." She says.

"I'm on board with that." I laugh

With that, our mentors walk in. The guy's name is Ezra and he is, for lack of a better word, a monster. He one his games by killing the last tribute with his bare hands. It was a hard battle, he had beaten the guy to the pulp and eventually snapped his neck like a twig. He won three years ago I think. As for the girl, Eva, she won after a fight the lasted for two hours between her and another girl. She eventually disarmed her. and stabbed her in the lung. When she wasn't dying quickly, she put poison berries in her mouth to put her out of her misery at the very end.

"So I will your mentor, Toby. And Cora, Eva will be yours." Other than that they don't really say much except for the expected, 'Make allies' and the 'Don't get cocky'. They said they can't really help much until they see who we are up against.

"Guys listen, you shouldn't have a problem with sponsors because your considered careers but you still want them to like you so make it seem like you're more excited than you've ever been and they will eat out of the palm of your hand." Eva says.

Being from district four, we aren't very far from the Capitol so the train ride only takes about two hours. When we pull into the station, me and Cora hold hands and walk out of the train with big smiles on our faces. The Capitol morons love it, of course. I walk through hundreds of people, each wearing a crazy colored outfit, even the men. We walk through the crowd easily enough and one woman even faints when we meet eyes. This is going to be interesting.

We get on the elevator and when the door is just about to close, I see another couple tributes arriving. The girl and boy couldn't be more than twelve. The thought of them being here makes me sick. I sincerely hope they go quickly and easily. We arrive to the fourth floor suite and its stunning. The main room is by far the fanciest thing I think I'll ever see.

We finally get to eat and me and Ezra pile food on our plates. I feel pretty self-conscious about it because the girls are eating like birds. I have some really good fish, a rice dish of some-sort and potatoes. When I'm totally stuffed Talia starts talking about the Capitol culture, the parties and fashion of course, and I'm exhausted. Talia leads me and Cora to our rooms and I immediately see the big comfortable bed waiting and I pass out.


	3. Chapter 3

I wake up to a loud bang on my door. Ezra probably. I look at the clock and it's 7:00. Time to get ready for the tribute parade. I keep the same clothes I'm in because I know they'll throw out whatever I'm wearing anyway.

About ten minutes later Ezra comes to collect me. He laughs at the sight of my messy clothes and throws me a muffin. I don't ask questions and just follow him. "Okay so I'm taking you down to your dressing room to meet your stylist, Quinn. I really hope you're not the shy type because you will be totally naked for a while...and hopefully none of the capitol stylists will try to take advantage of your...looks, in the process." he laughs.

We head down the elevator into a hallway of doors. Eventually we reach one with my name on it and Ezra leaves me.. If I have to deal with people like Talia, I'm really in for a treat.

The moment I walk in, there are three crazy looking stylists jabbing and yacking at me about things I have no understanding of. "Strip down please and put your clothes in this bin." one of them says. I knew it. Next thing I know I'm laying on a table and they start scrubbing me, practically raw. I guess we have different definitions of clean. Then they put this warm stuff around my eyebrows. It felt nice until they put paper on it and yanked it off.

"What are you doing?" I yell

"Making your eyebrows perfect!" one giggles.

Once that's done they put me in this tub of slimy green liquid and it quickly soothes my raw skin. One of the only things I appreciate about the capitol. In a matter of seconds my skin turns back to its normal, tanned tone and the redness totally vanishes.

They leave me in there for a few moments and start talking amongst themselves.

"I don't think that we need to do the face treatment, it's pointless, he doesn't need fixing." they agree.

"What's that?" I ask smartly

"Oh we were just saying that we don't need to do the final step on you because its supposed to make your skin flawless and you already have that on your face and we have orders to leave the scar on your breast alone because Quinn wants to showcase it to make you look rugged." I'm flattered and confused at the same time. How could a serum make someone's skin flawless? I look down at my scar and think back to when I got it. Me and my dad were on our boat catching bait at the reef with nets. I pulled up a load of fish and in the load was a piece of coral stuck in the netting. It brushed across my chest and I ended up needing stitches.

"Okay you're all done then" one says and hands me a thin robe to wear.

"Lucky you, we barely had to do a thing to you!" another giggles.

"Yeah if you say so" I laugh as I flex my abs. Even they can't take away my sense of humor. Eventually Quinn comes in to get me in my costume and so on.

She brings in a black bag and a huge grin.

"Oh this is more perfect for you than I thought." She laughs. "While you may not like how...exposed you will be, its really gonna help you with sponsors, especially the female ones" she laughs "But don't worry no makeup on you"

I'm surprised at how..normal she is. She has dark hair in a braid and a simple black dress. She's not a capitol priss either which is nice. She first starts with my hair. She trims it slightly on the bottom to look more of a clean cut. She then slicks it off to one side with gel. She grabs the bag and pulls out a pair a short teal trunks. They design looks like fish scales, which is cool, but they are _very_ short. "Put these on" she says.

I drop the robe and am just stunned. They are short, tight, and sparkly when in light.

"Is that _it_?" I say

"No, no. I have one more thing." she laughs

She reaches in the bag and pulls out what looks like a fish net. Quinn makes me put it on and it sags on my hips and drapes down over my legs. "Oh yeah Quinn that really covers me up." I laugh "Look you have a really nice body and I want to showcase that." she says

"Okay now look in the mirror."she says

I look good. My hair sweeps across my forehead and every angle of muscle is shown in my outfit. "Oh one last thing. I want you to wear this necklace. It's close to your face so it brings out your blue eyes." she says

* * *

I'm waiting for Cora at our chariot. I'm one of the first tributes here and end up waiting almost an hour. When she arrives, she looks amazing. Her blonde hair is wavy and flows over her shoulders. Her brown eyes are bolder with the makeup and shes wearing a costume very similar to me. Her teal parts look close to a bikini but much classier. Her net dress-like thing drapes over her shoulders instead of hips like mine. However we both are pretty exposed.

"How was that experience?" I laugh

"Toby, that was horrible! They took every strand of body hair off with wax!" she yells

"Well at least that's the worst of it." I say.

Eventually we are put on our chariots. Cora and I decided to hold hands in the air to look like a team, which we are. Once it starts moving, I force a smile and she does the same. We see the light of the stadium and she tightens her grip. We suffer through the ride to eventually hear the presidential welcome. He thanks us for our sacrifice and how this must be done, but personally I think this sick man just wants to watch kids kill each other, I can see it in his face. I think of Talon and my dad. I want to go home to them as soon as possible. I have no choice, if a shows want he wants, that's what I have to give. I _have_ to play their game.


	4. Chapter 4

I wake up the next morning early. First day of training, time to see what I'm up against. I roll myself out of bed and go to take a shower. There are so many knobs and buttons in there so I just press at random until I get a super hot temperature. It takes a while for me to feel like all the gel is out of my hair from last night and I end up washing my hair at least three times. When I'm finally done I walk out to find my bed perfectly made, I assume by an avox, and my training uniform laying on it. Tight black pants, a short sleeve matching top with red and gray sleeves, and of course my district number on my sleeves and back, and black leather boots.

I walk out to breakfast and find I'm the first one there. I get my plate and put piles of food from the table on it. Talia walks in and is appalled at me gorging myself but shes stays silent. I want to eat more but she eyes me so I just sit and wait for Ezra.

He finally comes out sits down next to me. "We will leave in a few minutes, we have to wait for the girls.", he says.

"Today is the day to decide if you two want to ally with one and two. You're a career so you don't have to worry about hiding your skills from other tributes. So really work on the capitol version of the weapons you are great with, which are what exactly?" he says.

"I'm more of a trident guy, and a knife and spear thrower. Those are probably my best. I can use a sword okay, just not with as much accuracy and force as those."

"Okay great, so work on those today and then the rest of training you can work on other things, including survival skills."

"Yeah I will, except for the survival skills, I know they don't offer much of that at our districts training academy, but my dad always had me studying edible plants, how to start fires and stuff. I'm good with those."

"Alright, just make sure you work on other weapons like I said." he says. With that the girls walk in and Cora is wearing the same outfit as me, pants a bit tighter, which is nice, and her hair in a ponytail.

"Toby, you ready to go down?" she asks me

"Yeah let's go."

We get in the elevator alone and I press the button for the training floor. She looks a bit nervous so I grab her hand. I want her to know I'm here for her. I will help her in anyway I can during the games, till the very end of course. The elevator suddenly jolts to a stop and I release her hand when the doors open.

"Hey, who said you could let go?" she laughs. I smile and take her hand again and lead her over to where the training head is waiting for the tributes. When the last few arrive, she starts talking about the one major rule, no fighting with each other until the arena. When she's done me and Cora look around and wait for the the other careers. Cora nudges me and I look up to see four people walking towards us.

One boy, clearly the leader walks in front to introduce everyone. I'm not gonna follow orders from him in the arena, but I decide to hear what he has to say first.

"Hey my name's Axel, district two, and my district partner Vega." he's a big guy, looks to be about seventeen like me. Maybe just an inch or two taller than my 6'2 stature, and muscular like me. I could take him if I have to. He's got short, dark black hair, and I can't help but notice a bit of an arrogance in his stature, his chest and shoulders sticking out. The girl is smaller, he says she's fifteen. She's looks like shes about 5'4, which means Cora has at least 5 inches on her. Her hair is a dark, dirty blonde, almost brown. She's average sized, but physically not much of a threat. She tries to look intimidating, but it's easy for me to tell she doesn't want to be here. She never would have volunteered in the best conditions if that was allowed.

It's at this moment I realize how strong Cora actually looks under her feminism and beauty. She has strong legs, not big but muscular, easily seen in her tight black pants. Her arms follow that same pattern as well.

After they are done, me and Cora peek around them to see two other standing behind them. They walk in front of Axel and I start noticing something unusual about them. They look very similar. Same light brown hair color, green eyes, and same height of maybe 5'8. This starts to run around in the back of my head as they speak.

"Hey I'm Maverick and this is Raina. We're-" the boy starts. I interuppt them "Okay I'm sorry but what's going on. You two look so similiar it's freaking me out" I blurt.

"Oh yeah we're twins" Raina says. Axel laughs. We just look at each other while they go on. Twins. How unfortunate do you have to be to get reaped with your twin brother. Their parents must be a mess already, knowing they will only get one or neither back. I feel an ache in my gut at the thought.

"Oh" is all I can say.

"Sooo-" Axel starts

"Are we alltogether then? Allies I mean?" he says

"We're in. What about you guys?" Raina says to Cora and I.

"Sure" Cora says. I just go with it. She didn't hesitate so she must notice something I don't. I nod and we start over to the weapons area.

"Lets all sit together at lunch so we can get to know each others strengths" Vega says. Again we all just nod and debate where to start training.

"Why don't we start at sword training." Vega suggests. We all walk over to the station and we see rows and rows of different swords. Immediately I begin, picking up a longsword and walking over to a set of dummies. The swords a bit heavier than the ones back i the district but I quickly adjust. I lift the sword and begin attacking the dummies. I don't stop until I have caused serious damage to each one, either in the chest, throat, or arms.

"Wow" Axel says as he has only been able to get through two dummies while I have gone through six. He's slow to attack, but thorough. Good to know I can beat him at strikes. I chuckle at this and wait for more dummies to be presented at my station. I do this for about an hour when everyone decides they want to move on to knife throwing. I see Vega put back a samuri sword and look over at her dummies. She almost caused as much damage as me. With that though I try to remind myself that I need to work with an instructor in a real sword fight to work on defense because she will be a tough opponent.

We meet the girls there and I pick up about a dozen knives. There are moving targets just like the ones at my training center. I start throwing at every dummy until I'm out of knives. I look at my handywork and am very pleassed. I hit every single dummy in the chest. Axel missed two and he seems even more frustrated adding this failure onto his incompetence with a sword. He must be hiding the skill he's great at.

* * *

Or so I thought.

After lunch we decide to work on spears for a while. My other _amazing_ skill. I'mgood at it because it's a lot like throwing a trident, which I could do in my sleep. Every one does okay but me and Axel. We sort of had a silent competion going on. We both were hitting every target and he didn't want to stop working on it. Eventually everyone else except me and him moved on to the bow. He wanted to show me up to make up for his earlier frustration. So I decide to miss a target on purpose and thats the moment he wants to move on, proving my theory. Regardless of the smile, he is jealous of my ability, not having even seen my best skill yet, and will not like me in the arena for sure so I must watch my and Cora's back.

There's only about an hour and a half left of training so I decide to take my opportunity to work on my best skill, the trident.

"Hey guys I'm gonna go work with the tridents so I'm gonna skip agility today." They all nod and leave me to my talent. I ask a trainer to simulate a fight with me and he agrees. He's dressed head to toe in protective armour so I can strike him with my trident and the worst that will happen is him falling from the force. I walk over to the stand with the tridents and pick up one. The weight feels great in my hand, right, and the points are perfectly sharpened. There are three points the same height and a slightly taller, harper one in the middle, almost an exact replica of the one I train with at home, down to the height. This thought makes me feel safe because if there is a trident in the arena, it will be this one and I could do a lot of damage.

The trainor has a rubber sword and I'm supposed to disarm him and strike. I doge his strikes left and right and eventually ue the shaft of the trident to block a blow followed by knocking the sword out of his hand I then spin it back to striking position but hold back becasue I'm worried I will hurt him, and my groups watching.

"I guess you have picked you weapon for the arena" Cora says

I nod and the bell to leave rings.


End file.
